1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer and a printing method and, particularly, to a printer and a printing method that print information on a printing medium by moving a printing part or a printing medium in the gravity direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers that are placed on a table and make printing by feeding a printing medium such as paper horizontally with respect to a table surface are widely distributed.
As an example of conventional printers, an inkjet printer has a carriage inside, which feeds paper that is set to a paper tray into the printer and then repeats paper feeding and suspension to discharge the paper outside. While the carriage stops feeding the paper, a print head in the printer moves in the scan direction and injects ink through an ink nozzle, thereby making a print on the paper. In this way, conventional printers make printing by repeating the alternate operation of the print head moving and the carriage paper feeding.
An electric motor is generally used as the carriage. The electric motor, however, consumes a lot of electricity and makes lots of noise during operation.
In order to solve this drawback, a printer that does not have a carriage is proposed.
An example of the printer without a carriage is one that has a medium carrier to feed paper as a printing medium in the gravity direction by using gravity efficiently. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-266867 (FIGS. 1 and 2) describes a printer where a printing part (medium processing engine) is supported by hanging against a vertical wall through a suspension bracket and paper moves down through the printing part by its own weight so that the printing part makes a print on the paper.
On the other hand, a printer where a printing part (medium processing engine) moves in the gravity direction to make a print on paper is described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-80076 (FIG. 1).
Since the above printers have no carriage, the printing part performs printing on a printing medium without stopping the printing medium or the printing part. This causes print displacement due to the movement of the printing medium or the printing part during printing.
Particularly in an inkjet printer, a printing medium or a printing part moves in the gravity direction while a print head moves in the scan direction. This causes a printed result on a printing medium to be distorted obliquely.
As described above, the present invention has recognized that, though the techniques described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-266867 and 62-80076 have achieved elimination of a carriage by making efficient use of the movement of a printing medium or a printing part in the gravity direction, they have a problem that different printing information from original information is printed.